The Party’s Over

Time to call it a day: but not before thanks are given to all those who worked so hard to make this happen and be the success it was.

From the Higher Organising Committee, for the vision, financial and political will to orchestrate the Mondial, Dubai 2012; to the Technical Meet Director, Mohamned Yousuf Abdul Rahman and Helmut Schlecht, Deputy Meet Director and their teams who worked so hard before, during and after the Mondial on its structure and infrastructure, many of whom were thanked publicly at the end of the final prize-giving ceremony when they were presented with commemorative plaques and included the pilots and public commentators not to forget the Doctors and medial team on site nor the weather forecaster, who accurately warned of the rain that arrived on the first day. . However, behind all these teams were armies of workers and I would like to acknowledge all those working in registration, manifest, public TV display, IT, boats, aircrews and any I have failed to mention, the public thanks due to them for the success of the Mondial.

On top of this we have the IPC layer, from Alberto Martin Paracuellos. FAI Controller, whose work started in 2011 when he was appointed at the Plenary meeting when the bid from Dubai was accepted to Gillian Rayner, IPC Controller of Judging and Scoring, again whose work started during the build up co-ordinating the judges for each panel with the Chief Judges and during the Mondial distributing scores, information etc. and finally orchestrating the medal ceremonies. To the Chief Judges and their panels and the Jury who found they had quite a lot of work to do. To Claire King and Dirk Venter of InTime who provided the judging, scoring and public display software for FS, CF, AE and CP and to Gert Weckbecker, Davide Lonardon and the team from Weckbecker Electronics for the Freefall Style and Accuracy Landings equipment and scoring systems.

To Skydive Dubai for making us all so welcome and filling in the gaps when needed plus all their subcontractors who kept us well fed and transported around the DZ, back to the hotels, ceremony venues etc. through the heavy Dubai traffic: also with clean toilets and working areas. Nor forgetting the packers who worked long and hard in the sun. To the publicity company who did so well to promote the Mondial to the world as well as Dubai – it was amazing to visit the shopping malls and see videos of skydiving being played to the public, so too the posters on London busses during the Olympics 2012. The organisation of all the additional ‘sensational’ side shows and the TV company who broadcast live for 2 hours each day and quickly learnt that unlike other sports they could not plan a programme around what was going to happen at a certain time, but had to go with what was, (or was not) happening.

Despite all this nothing would have happened without the competitors, and again those who won medals rightly received their acclaim, but thanks also go to all the other teams and individuals who competed, who made this such an exciting competition on all levels, who achieved personal bests and improved their average, to the World and National Records that were broken. I hope that the experience will bring to those many countries who competed at a First Category Event for the first time, the determination to compete again so that Dubai becomes a benchmark from which we can measure future participation, wherever the competition is hosted.

However, somehow, I do not believe this is the end of the Dubai story, with the establishment of the new Dubai Parachuting Federation, I hope we will be invited back again for future competitions.